Veteran Analyst Leaves State Department Peace Team to Resume Policy Research

David Makovsky, one of America's leading experts on Middle East peace diplomacy, will conclude an almost ten-month stint as a senior advisor on Secretary of State John Kerry's peace team this week and return to his position at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the research organization announced today.

"I am grateful to have had this opportunity to serve Secretary Kerry in this important role," said Makovsky, who will once again direct the Institute's project on Arab-Israel peace. "I look forward to continuing to advance peace and security in the region through my work at the Institute."

Makovsky, the Institute's Ziegler Distinguished Fellow, has written widely during the thirteen years he has been a senior fellow at the Institute. He has authored numerous Washington Institute monographs, essays, and op-eds on issues related to the Middle East peace process and U.S. policy. He coauthored Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East (Viking/Penguin) with former presidential peace envoy Dennis Ross, the Institute's William Davidson Distinguished Fellow. He also wrote a book about Israeli decisionmaking during the 1993 talks entitled Making Peace with the PLO: The Rabin Government's Road to the Oslo Accord (Westview/HarperCollins).

He has testified before both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. His 2011 maps on alternative territorial solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were reprinted by the New York Times in the paper's first interactive treatment of an op-ed. For over twenty years, he has been a regular commentator on Arab-Israeli diplomacy on the PBS NewsHour.

Before arriving at The Washington Institute in 2000, Makovsky had a distinguished career in journalism. He served as a special correspondent in Jerusalem for U.S. News and World Report. He was also diplomatic correspondent for Israel's leading daily, Haaretz, and executive editor of the Jerusalem Post. He is a co-winner of the National Press Club's Edwin M. Hood Award for diplomatic correspondence and was the first correspondent writing for an Israeli publication to be admitted to Syria (1994) and Saudi Arabia (1995).

"Through his knowledge, creativity, and sensitivity, David made an enormous contribution to America's peacemaking effort," said Robert Satloff, the Institute's executive director and Howard P. Berkowitz Chair in U.S. Middle East Policy. "At the Institute, he will continue to inject new ideas into the policy process through research, writing, and engaging in vigorous public debate. His colleagues and I are delighted to welcome him back to the Institute family."